


I have no home in you

by imsfire



Series: Paths of hurt and darkness [2]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: F/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Hatred, brief mention of Baze and Chirrut, brief mentions of Bodhi, warning for planned suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-19
Updated: 2017-02-19
Packaged: 2018-09-25 15:22:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9826259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imsfire/pseuds/imsfire
Summary: Don’t come near me, don’t touch me, don’t ask me to open up to you...





	

The nightmares are getting worse; they have been, ever since the battle.  Every time he wakes from one he thinks _that was the worst yet_ , knowing that another yet worse will come, soon.  He goes from waking in a cold sweat to waking thrashing his bedclothes, punching, shouting; to waking out of bed and afoot, poised in a fighting stance.  The week after that, he wakes to find he has thrown the wardrobe over onto the floor and is slashing at it with a knife.  He has no idea how he managed to find and open the vibro-blade in his sleep; but he’s already pierced the back of the cupboard and cut into some of the clothing inside in his frenzy.

The roar of engines on the base makes him leap out of his skin a dozen times a day.  He’s had to request reassignment of quarters, to the farthest block from the landing pads.  Mechanical buzzes and hums of all kinds set him on edge, even the purr of the air-cooler starting up feels like a fingernail scraping along a nerve.  He hasn’t been able to go to target practice in months.

The medical staff tell him he just has to wait, that time is a great healer and this will pass, if he is patient.  He knows this is a partial truth; but knows also that there are only two psych-trained doctors for the whole base, and their priority is active service personnel.  Cassian is anything but active.  His hands shake uncontrollably when he holds a weapon, he stutters when he talks and he hasn’t had a single night’s uninterrupted sleep since Scarif.  He won’t be eligible for counselling till the war is over.

Occasionally he sees Jyn at the med-bay, or around the base.  They’ve tried to talk to one another but the words come hard; as hard for her, it seems, as for him. 

The memory of the beach, of waiting for the end and knowing himself somehow safe in her arms, is more precious than anything he owns in this life.  He’s always believed he would die alone, and pointlessly; suddenly on that pale shore it had seemed neither was true, and the blessing of that was a miracle.

But the first time they met afterwards, when the weeks of medical treatment were over and they were both on their feet again, she had come straight to him like a child running to her home.  She embraced him, and all he could see was the world beginning to burn all around her.  He had to fight not to fling her away.  He can’t, he _can’t_ , go back there.

The hurt in her eyes was as acute as any from the burns on his shoulder and flank.  She had masked it almost instantly.  He cringed out of her arms, rigid with horror, and saw her shut down.

He knows that expression of hers so well, from the day he first met her, from all those intense days of meeting and mistrusting one another.  _Don’t come near me_ , it says; _don’t touch me, don’t ask me to open up to you, I know you’ll turn away the moment you don’t need me anymore; I have no home in you._

There’s justice in that, Cassian thinks.  He has no home in himself, either.

He has a small blaster hidden in his room, not official issue but bought on the black market on Corellia years ago.  Three nights later he wakes from another nightmare and finds himself standing in the empty midnight corridor on the way to the briefing rooms, holding the gun before him with both hands.  He’s in attack stance and the safety is off; it’s sheer luck he hasn’t put an energy bolt through someone coming back to their quarters from a late shift.  Now he’s awake, his hands begin to quiver; but they were steady, in the nightmare, in the face of the enemies he almost shot.

It could have been anyone; any colleague, any honourable soldier, any harmless civilian staffer.  Could have been Bodhi coming for a late chat, or Baze or Chirrut checking up on him.  It could have been Jyn.

He makes his way back to his room and sits shaking on the bed. 

He can never trust himself again, so long as this goes on, and he has no hope of it ending before he does something that cannot be put right.  Better to put it right, now, before he takes yet another life.

His hand trembles when he raises the blaster.  But even a shaking hand cannot help but fire accurately at point blank range. 


End file.
